Spearfisherman attacked by bull shark says it’s a ‘blessing’ he kept his hand

Shark encounters are a fact of life when spearfishing in the Gulf of Mexico. And Wesley Fayard, a veteran diver from Mississippi, has had his fair share of them. But on June 29, while diving about 50 miles offshore, he had his closest call yet. After spearing two mangrove snapper in deep water, Fayard was surprised by a 6-foot bull shark that tried to steal the fish from his line. The attack could have been much worse, and he says he was blessed to be able to swim away with both hands.

“I’ve had a lot of shark encounters and moments where I’ve been a little bit shaken up, so to speak,” Fayard says Outdoor living. “Usually you see the shark quite early, before it comes to attack you or really checks you out. But that wasn’t the case this time.”

Fayard went out that day with a few other members of the Deepwater mafiaa local dive club that coordinates group outings in the Gulf. He says he joined a trip at the last minute, jumping aboard a club member’s 31-foot Contender with five other divers, one of whom was a doctor with experience in the emergency room. Fayard didn’t know it when they left the marina—the two had never met—but having a doctor on board would become very important later that afternoon.

The group left Pascagoula around 7 a.m. and ran about 60 miles south, making a few dives and spearfishing around some pyramids, which are large artificial reefs designed to attract fish.

“Some guys shot some nice mangrove snapper and we definitely had a good box full of fish,” Fayard says of their first two dives. “I saw a shark on the second dive, but it was just a normal day. You see the shark come in, it’s swimming around a bit, but I didn’t really pay attention to it and it didn’t really pay attention to me.”

From there the group worked their way inland. They stopped to spearfish at a few more pyramids and then headed to a natural reef about 50 miles offshore that some of the boys knew well. Two of them dove down and found some fish, but they didn’t hang around long.

“They came with some nice snappers and said the sharks were aggressive. There were five or six bull sharks and they kept going around in circles [the guys] “It was pretty tight,” said Fayard, who was diving next to it. “It wasn’t a big deal for me, I’ve been in that situation before, but we moved about 1,000 feet to another reef in the same area.”

Looking back on the incident, Fayard believes one of the aggressive bull sharks must have followed the dive boat to the second reef. Like other predators, sharks can learn to associate humans with free meals, and Fayard says he’s seen the same shark follow a boat from spot to spot on previous dives. At that moment, though, he was focused on finding his own fish. He dove through a murky surface to a maximum depth of 113 feet, where it was relatively dark near the bottom.

Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Spearfishing

Fayard immediately speared a large 15-pound red snapper. It wasn’t a perfect shot, so he had to wrestle with the fish for a while before he could hang it. After reloading, he speared and fought another nice snapper and added it to the line attached to his hip. But when he checked his surroundings again, he could no longer see the reef. He held the speargun in his left hand and looked around for a direction to go.

“I was about 20 feet off the bottom and I remember looking to my right and there he was. He was over my right shoulder, coming from behind me,” Fayard said of the 6-foot bull shark. “He was only four or five feet away from me and it freaked me out. So I turned around real quick, backed up and turned my body toward him.”

Fayard believes the sudden movement prompted the bull to grab the two snapper before they got away. The fish were still attached to his hip and were floating against his side when the shark attacked.

“He closed those four feet in a split second,” Fayard says, “and all I could see were bubbles. It was just, boom, My hand is in his mouth and I’m screaming, trying to pull away.”

After a few seconds of thrashing with his right hand, the shark let go and disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Fayard swam to the surface, both snappers still on his hip, pausing for only a minute to decompress during his ascent. Wearing gloves, he couldn’t see how bad the wound was, but he knew he had to get out of the water quickly.

Read more: Watch: Shark Drags Fisherman Overboard in Florida Everglades

Once he surfaced, his dive buddies rushed to him and pulled him into the boat. The doctor on board immediately went to the emergency room, removed Fayard’s glove, and wrapped his hand tightly in a towel to stop the bleeding. The boat’s captain used his inReach to call 911, and when they were 10 miles out, a Wildlife and Fisheries boat arrived to re-bandage Fayard’s hand and escort them to the marina. From there, Fayard was taken to one hospital and then another, where he underwent surgery to repair severed tendons in his right hand and wrist.

Doctors told Fayard he might lose some strength in a few fingers, but they expect his hand to make a full recovery. Which, for him, is an incredibly lucky feeling. He says the glove made a big difference that day and was one of the factors that made the attack less bloody than it could have been.

“I had a very good cut- and puncture-resistant glove. And that saved my hand, without a doubt. I wouldn’t have my pinky and ring finger, that’s for sure,” said Fayard, who plans to continue spearfishing in the Gulf, but with extra safety precautions and a newfound respect for bull sharks. “I know I could have done things differently. But I also know it could have been a lot worse.

“I call it a blessing,” he continues. “I’m a Christian and I really believe that God took care of me.”